How to apply CSS to list in HTML - html

Question

I had to Create a working HTML/CSS for the following nestes list
root
child1
child11
child2
child21
child22
child3
child31
So for this I created the following
HTML
<ul class="list-view">
<li>
<ul><li>Chlid11</li></ul>
</li>
<li>
<ul>
<li>Chlid21</li>
<li>Chlid22</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<ul>
<li>Chlid31</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
Now How will I be able to apply CSS to the leaf parent and root node .
I have to make Leaf to green , parent to red and root should be like parent but with underline
Here Leaf are
Child: 11 , 21, 22 , 31
Parent: the three li
root will be :the first ul
This was a question asked to me in an Interview I am just trying to solve it
Css has to be dynamic . I mean I was not suppose to add classes directly saying what is leaf and what is root .
Something like this
Jsfiddle
UPDATE
CSS
.list-view> li:first-child{
color:red;
text-decoration: underline;
}
.list-view> li ul li {
color:red;
}
.list-view> li ul li ul li{
color:green;
}
I am not able to make just the root node underline
Thanks

Answer 1

I am going to take a stab in the dark, so please don't shoot me if i jumped the gun. But here is my understanding of what he is talking about.
<ul class="root">
<li class="parent">
<ul class="leaf">
<li>Chlid11</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="parent">
<ul class="leaf">
<li>Chlid21</li>
<li>Chlid22</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="parent">
<ul class="leaf">
<li>Chlid31</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
CodePen for example

Answer 2

first of all, your markup does not make very much sense to me. Nesting ul's inside li's is not very useful when the li's do not contain any other content. I suppose your markup should look more like this:
<ul>
<li>
<span>Root</span>
<ul>
<li>Parent</li>
<li>Parent
<ul>
<li>Leaf</li>
<li>Leaf</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Root</li>
</ul>
When it comes to targeting each level with css, you have a number of options. Adding classes to each level may seem the most straight forward, but it can be harder to maintain, and it is easier to make mistakes. Others have already demonstrated this technique, so I'll limit myself to a few alternatives:
option 1a:
ul { /* root + parent + leaf */ }
ul ul { /* parent + leaf */ }
ul ul ul { /* leaf */ }
option 1b:
li { /* root + parent + leaf */ }
li li { /* parent + leaf */ }
li li li { /* leaf */ }
option 2:
ul > li { /* root + parent + leaf */ }
ul > li > ul > li { /* parent + leaf */ }
ul > li > ul > li > ul > li { /* leaf */ }
That is basically it I guess, though you could come up with some variations. Option 1a and 1b are equivalent. Option 2 is more specific, and can be useful when trying to overwrite certain styles. It is considered good practice to keep your selectors as little specific as possible though. This way you can overwrite them easier later on, and your selectors do not get ridiculously long. It just keeps your code easier to read and maintain, so I would definitely go for option 1 in this case.
Note that this technique requires you to overwrite your styles. The styling you requested could ie. be achieved by doing something like this:
li {
color:red;
}
li span {
text-decoration: underline;
}
li li li {
color:green;
}
The pseudo classes you speak of in the comments (:nth-child, ...) are irrelevant here. They are meant for distinguishing between siblings, not for parent-child relations.
edit:
the text-decoration property is a bit tricky to overwrite. Have a look at the specs on MDN: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/text-decoration
Text decorations draw across descendant elements. This means that it is not possible to disable on a descendant a text decoration that is specified on one of its ancestors.
To solve this, you have to make sure the element with the underline is not the parent of the rest of your tree. Th easiest way is to put it in a span and apply the underline only to that:
http://jsfiddle.net/r616k0ks/3/
(I have updated my code samples above accordingly)

Answer 3

Using some specific selectors you can create almost any selection without using classes on the child elements.
I don't know if this is what you're getting at:
/* Root */
.list-view { background: grey; }
/* First level li's */
.list-view > li { background: red; }
/* First level of ul's */
.list-view > li > ul { background: orange; }
/* Second level of li's */
.list-view > li > ul > li { background: purple; }
/* Second level of li's, first element */
.list-view ul > li:nth-child(1) { background: green; }
/* Second level of li's, all other elements */
.list-view ul > li:nth-child(1n+2) { background: blue; }
See link https://jsfiddle.net/6d3g3zLm/
If not, feel free to elaborate on your question.

Answer 4

Have you tried adding classes to your html?
https://jsfiddle.net/w7tx52L5/
HTML
<ul>
Root
<li class="parent">
Parent1
<ul class="child"><li>Chlid11</li></ul>
</li>
<li class="parent">
Parent2
<ul class="child">
<li>Chlid21</li>
<li>Chlid22</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="parent">
Parent3
<ul class="child">
<li>Chlid31</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
CSS
.root {
color: red;
text-decoration: underline;
}
.parent {
text-decoration: none;
color: red;
}
.child {
color: green;
}
Edit
from your comment it appears you need to use :nth-child selectors. That wasn't clear from your original question. try this css -
ul {
color: red;
display: inline-block;
width: 100%;
text-decoration: underline;
}
ul li {
display: inline-block;
width: 100%;
text-decoration: none;
color: red;
}
ul li:nth-child(odd) > ul li:first-child {
color:green;
}
ul li:nth-child(even) > ul li {
color: green;
}
The workaround of display: inline-block and width:100% is because text-decoration affects all nested elements as well. http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/text.html#propdef-text-decoration

Answer 5

Add classes to the list elements as Geoffrey has shown in his answer. Then apply styling to the classes as you would any styling. If you don't know CSS or anything about how to style, I would suggest researching a little more before you ask these kinds of questions, as this stuff is relatively easy to learn if you put some time and effort into it. http://www.w3schools.com/css/